Being to Timelessness
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: Prequel to "As Its to Time". An ancient Gallifreyan ceremony involves the Last of the Time Lords, both of them, and friends.
1. Part 1

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's May Challenges have been added because... well, I had a reason and I'm sure it was a good one. The new challenges will run through the end of May. If you'd prefer to do April's, feel free. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. Stories are linked on my LJ.**

This fic, a prequel to "As Its to Time", was written as a birthday gift for Vallora. First time posting on FFnet. The request was for a Gallifreyan Bonding Ceremony.

Part of the "Tomorrow is Yesterday" 'Verse. Please don't ask me why it insists on being bold, I have no idea and no control over FFnet anymore.

* * *

****

Being to Timelessness

_Part 1_

_Six candles burn in seven sconces, representing the Six Found Colleges. _

Rose doesn't understand that. The Doctor says it's all rubbish, anyway, because they're all lost now, even Prydon Academy, as one surviving ne'er-do-well does not a College make. Rose wants to know how you can lose an entire College and the Doctor admits that the Time Lords were forever losing things and claiming mystical reasons, or worse, deliberately not making things in the first place and calling them lost.

Jack is just now finishing up losing the rest of his awe of the legendary society.

Rose still wants to know how a College can be lost and the Doctor swears St. Cedd's, Cambridge, once lost an entire department because the insouciant Regius Professor of the same ran off with it. Rose says that's not quite the same thing, so the Doctor offers to take her to Harvard and let her try to find anything, and she admits that maybe he's got a point.

Jack thinks they're both mad and says so, and they move on.

_A bouquet of roses and eucalyptus intertwined with ivy lays in the center of an open book placed on a plinth in the front of the room._

The Doctor admits that neither roses nor ivy are quite right, really, but they'll have to do as he hasn't seen tryteria in centuries, but the ivy very much resembles it. At least the roses are white, he says, and he's not uprooting any of his highly endangered rosettalyr even for such an important occasion as this.

Jack comments idly on the similarity of the names of the rare Gallifreyan wild flower and the rather startled looking girl.

The Doctor blames linguistics, Douglas Adams, and someone called Djakarknuss. Rose giggles at this and asks what the roses are for. Upon being told they're meant to represent purity, she blushes and shuts up. Upon being asked what the ivy is for, the Doctor himself blushes and also shuts up.

Jack is left to contemplate the silvery-looking Australian leaves in silence, decides to shut up before anyone blushes - or cries - and they move on again.

_There is a device painstakingly carved into the front of the plinth, an ornate infinity symbol with more depth than it is possible to see in three dimensions._

Rose admits that the figure eight in very pretty and that the Doctor's done a good job on it, and she gets a rather scathing look for her pains. Her giggles finally give away that she's being deliberately obtuse and the Doctor sticks his tongue out at her. They end up tussling on the floor in a manner that is completely undignified for the Last of the Time Lords - or the Next to the Last, as Rose refers to herself.

Jack asks if he can join them and they finally quit playing around.

The symbol, Rose explains, is called an Omniscate. This particular one is meant to show the combining of her House with the Doctor's. However, she's got no House and he was Houseless long before he was homeless, so they've designed this one for them alone. It has their names in it. Somewhere.

Jack points out that he can also find "Waldo" in all the complicated trans-temporal banding going on in the fourth dimension around the thing, and they give up and move on.

_There is an exquisite arrangement of earth flowers on one side of the room, meant to represent the members of Rose's family who have gone before her._

No one comments on the display of an entire constellation on the other side of the room.

_Lying across the book on the plinth, just above the bouquet, are two cords. One is blue, the other red. A third cord of gold and silver hangs impossibly in midair above the plinth._

Rose claims to have seen a real hand-fasting on the alternate Earth, because that's what's usually done there. The Doctor claims that hand-fasting is one of the more common marriage practices across the whole, vast cosmos. Then, he goes on to prove it by rattling of eighty-eight different species in fifty-six different galaxies that use some variety of hand-fasting. The fact that it takes him only forty-five seconds to do this means Jack learns nothing and Rose learns next to nothing, even if she is better at keeping up with him.

Jack demands to know why he wasn't told this much of the Universe was into bondage.

Indignantly, the Doctor explains that the concept has nothing to do with bondage and everything to do with symbolic union. In this case there are three cords, whereas most traditions only have one. They represent the past (the blue cord, also meaning death), the present (the red cord, also meaning life), and all possible futures (the woven gold and silver cord, also meaning eternity). The silver and gold cord is apparently quite ethereal and doesn't actually physically manifest itself except in rare cases.

Jack points out that Time Lords are not only into bondage, they're into weird, four-dimensional bondage that ordinary beings can't pull off, and Rose giggles again while the Doctor blushes and sputters for them to move along.

_There are thirteen chairs scattered about the room, each decorated in a representative manner, each set in a perfect place to fulfill a specific purpose._

Rose asks if Time Lords invented witchcraft. The Doctor disavows any knowledge of how this could be even remotely possible, and he does so with such fervor and such tugging at his ear that Rose and Jack both know he's lying through his teeth. What he will cop to, however, is that such things as the general so-called "humanoid" shape, the concepts of important numbers like thirteen or five and, for some reason, the Greek alphabet all indicate Time Lord intervention or at least resonance.

Jack tries to move the fluffy silver bow off of his chair and gets a smack from Rose for his pains.

The Doctor goes on to explain that the thirteen chairs would have been filled by specific Time Lords back in the ancient days when this was a common practice. The silver chair is Jack's because he's acting as Witness-Officiant for this ceremony. Rose and the Doctor have the white chairs that are side by side in the middle of the room. There are eight for specific guests, divided evenly on each side of the room, and the last two are on either side and a bit behind the couple's chairs. They're meant for the closest relative for each of them, which was a bit of a problem, because neither of them have a single family member left in this Universe.

Jack wonders why they even gave him a chair since he's already been warned he'll have to stand through the entire ceremony and the Doctor tells him it's just the done thing and to shut up and move on.

They leave the room.

_Jack places a seal on the outside of the library door, which is to be broken by certain people when the ceremony starts, and it's time. They are about to indulge in an ancient Gallifreyan Bonding Ceremony, uniting the last two Time Lords in the Universe._

Jack hopes they'll have cute babies. Lots of them.


	2. Part 2

**As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. This month's May Challenges have been added because... well, I had a reason and I'm sure it was a good one. The new challenges will run through the end of May. If you'd prefer to do April's, feel free. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review. Stories are linked on my LJ.**

This fic, a prequel to "As Its to Time", was written as a birthday gift for Vallora. First time posting on FFnet. The request was for a Gallifreyan Bonding Ceremony.

Part of the "Tomorrow is Yesterday" 'Verse. Please don't ask me why it insists on being bold, I have no idea and no control over FFnet anymore.

* * *

****

**Being to Timelessness**

_**Part 2**_

_The Candidates wear robes of pure white, with scarlet and orange trim on one, while the Witness-Officiant wears a robe of ivory, trimmed in gold._

Rose complains that the stark white washes out her complexion. The Doctor says she's beautiful and they stare at each other for a long, intense moment that is almost painful to witness. Then, he laughs and claims that at least she doesn't have freckles that are suddenly visible from orbit and Rose laughs with him.

Jack tugs at the collar on his robe and swears quietly under his breath.

The Doctor explains that Rose's robe is only white because she doesn't have College colors to adorn the sleeves and piping. She asks why Prydonians got scarlet and orange and the Doctor jokes that they were the most thoroughly boring lot. She smiles at him tenderly, and he's obviously lost in her eyes. He admits then that the oldest College chose the primary colors of their world for their own.

Jack wants to know why he's suddenly entitled to Gold Usher and the Doctor gapes at him until Jack blames the TARDIS and the Doctor stops panicking so they can move on.

_The Appointed are awaiting admittance when the Officiant joins them at the library door, where two ask traditional questions and, at the Officiant's affirmative response, break the seal._

These people were carefully chosen. Since there are no Time Lords and no relatives, they are close friends of the couple, people who can be trusted. They have travelled with the Doctor in the past, or they have spent time with the couple in the present. They are people who Rose, at least, will admit that they love.

Jack understands, because he loves them, too.

The Doctor will never say that the Brigadier, the man selected to represent his family, is a brother to him. He will never admit that he loves Mickey Smith, chosen to represent Rose's family, if for no other reason than that Mickey was brave enough and stupid enough to give her up. Two chairs are left empty, and the others are filled with precious people who, even now, have never heard from the Doctor's lips why they are there, nor how he adores them.

Jack gets that, too, because he's learned the fear of speaking and the power of keeping truth in silence, and he opens the door for them to move on.

_The ceremony begins._

Jack sings.

_The doors reveal the Candidates, summoned by the Song, and they step into the room, not touching, side-by-side as equals should be, as their voices raise to join the Song._

The ancient song was nowhere near as hard to learn as it should have been. Even back when the Doctor was big-eared and angry-eyed, Rose could be heard humming snatches of it at all hours of the day and night. It has power, this tune, and fundamental compulsion, a blessing and a promise in its lyric lines.

Jack insisted, when asked, that if Rose could learn it when she technically couldn't even hear it, he certainly could.

It has no words that human ears can comprehend, but it doesn't need to be understood to be known. Meaning can be felt, in the flow and ebb of the music, even as the words trip by rote from lips that have never learned the language that goes with them. There are only two people in all of time and space who will understand that there are words there at all. All the same, the Song moves everyone now, and though they don't know it, for the rest of their lives.

As the music rises and falls, a fourth voice joins the harmony before they move on, and Jack thinks that a song called "Hope" should sound like this.

_The Song closes when the Candidates take their seats and the Witness-Officiant places their hands together, showing them the beginning of their Bond._

The Doctor looks quite alarmed about all of this when Jack takes their hands, though neither he nor Rose is to say a word from this point until the ceremony concludes. There is a wariness in his eyes, as if he expects to be pounced on and bathed in sloppy affection, even as Jack places their hands together. Their fingers interlace, which isn't in the program, but they've been doing it that way from the very beginning, so it's nothing special, even though it's everything as well.

Jack wonders if he ought to just jump in and smooch them both, just to give the Doctor something to be terrified about.

Their eyes close and their bond opens, and this ceremony is way past redundant for them, anyway. When the telepathic communion begins, the age and depth of it becomes apparent almost immediately.

Jack's breath catches as he senses the edges of the link with his fragile telepathy, and his hands are shaking at the scope of it as the ceremony continues.

_Each of the Appointed are invited to speak the words of history and future, of binding and commitment._

The Doctor has explained that, given this kind of license to speak, your average Time Lord would gladly indulge in a filibuster to do William Henry Harrison proud. Public speaking, he's said, is something they were taught at approximately the same age Rose was learning her ABCs.

Jack's always claimed he was born knowing them, because it's always fun to see Rose's face get that red right before she screams at you.

On the plus side, no one is actually required to speak. While unlikely at the source, it is perfectly acceptable for all of the English speakers who find themselves in the middle of this unlikely alien affair to keep their silence.

No one says a word, because no words are needed for something written out in stars.

_The Brethren rise and take the cords, the elder to take the Past, the younger the Present, and they bind the couple as tradition dictates._

Mickey does his work first because the Time Lords have always had a very strange perception of time - the phrase "no time like the present" is almost absurdly applicable to them. The Doctor has lived it all his life and can't explain it, but Rose says it almost feels like every single moment breathes.

Jack still doesn't get exactly what she means by that, which is odd, because he's had a time sense all his life and has always perceived it more as if...then.

The Brigadier does his binding next, again because of that odd sense of time. The Doctor's explanation is again too complex, as if the type of past he's referring to isn't the type of past that beings who exist in only three dimensions understand. Rose's explanation is that the past is the Isle of Wight. She looks so sad and strange when she says it, especially when she follows up that the blue cord has two meanings.

Jack just remembers the blue suit as he watches the silent couple, who never react at all to their hands being tied together from wrist to elbow before they come to the next step.

_The Honorium is sung for all those present and all those absent._

Though Jack appears to stand by himself, he does not sing alone.

_The gold and silver band tumbles from its ethereal perch._

The Doctor is not expecting this part of the ceremony to occur. It is only a legend, he says, that the future band can ever be touched. He doesn't even know the circumstances that might cause it to manifest in real space, believes it is impossible for any force in the Universe to cause the thing to come into being.

Jack's noticed that the sheer volume of things that come true once the Doctor says they're impossible is larger than whole galaxies, and has wondered aloud if he does it on purpose.

Rose knows that the Doctor definition of impossible may be a bit skewed, as she has proven it herself from time to time. She is a Time Lord when she was born human, is here when the walls of the Universe once closed between them forever. She is the Doctor's consort, wife, and help meet, when even she once believed it was impossible to ever touch him. She is expecting this.

Jack accepts the band from phantom fingers and uses it to bind the couple one more time before the ceremony comes to its conclusion.

_The bond is tested in three ways._

Everyone stands. Mickey takes Rose's arm and his face is the perfect picture of self-deprecating amusement. The Brigadier takes the Doctor's, and he is grinning as if he's been given the gift of a lifetime. They give a good, strong tug, but the bindings hold as they are supposed to do. They each release their respective holds, and Mickey gives Rose an affectionate shove as he does so, sending her into the Doctor's embrace, shaking his head at himself as if he's only just realized he'd been doing this for years.

Jack steps forward and places a hand at each of their temples to verify that the bond is in place.

In his mind, the Doctor is laughing, startled and confused, but full of merry and child-like delight. He has seen a legend come true, again, and become part of a new legend, all at once, and he finds it so much better than anything he's ever seen before. The power of the Doctor's mind draws Jack in and then Rose is there as well, and it feels like she's hugging them both, her laugh like fairy bells a warmth and a welcome as Jack finds himself unable to resist hugging them back.

Jack wonders that the inability to speak hasn't made the Doctor explode before the final test, the final step, begins.

_The Bound speak._

Their lips move in perfect tandem, the words exact and in stereo. Rhythm and cadence are precise and Rose's. The words are the Doctor's. They begin in English, because they wish to be understood, speaking individual thank-yous to each participant. They give encouragement and invitations, advice, and congratulations for events known and unknown to everyone.

Jack doesn't bother to wonder why the words spoken to him include "Don't even think about it."

They continue in their own language, and the Song called "Joy" rings out through the room and through the stars. It sounds like what it is, a celebration. It includes joys quiet and small, and joys so great that they can never be compassed. Their eyes are bright and shining, eyes of lovers who have beheld both sorrow and beauty and come away together and stronger.

Jack thinks what he has always done - that real, true love looks just like them.

_The Book of Days is closed and the Assembled depart._

As Jack removes the bouquet and closes the book on the plinth, he truly believes for the first time that someday he'll feel love like this.


End file.
